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Invisible

A geographer, social scientist, artist, writer and provocateur, Trevor Paglen has been exploring the secret “black world” of the U.S. military and intelligence agencies for almost a decade, publishing, speaking and making astonishing photographs. As an artist, Paglen is interested in the idea of photography as truth-telling, but his pictures often stop short of traditional ideas of documentation. His long-awaited first photographic monograph is Invisible: Covert Operations and Classified Landscapes. In the series “Limit Telephotography” he employs high-end optical systems to photograph top-secret governmental sites, and in “The Other Night Sky,” he uses the data of amateur satellite watchers to track and photograph classified spacecraft in Earth’s orbit. In other works Paglen transforms documents such as passports, flight data and aliases of CIA operatives into art objects. Rebecca Solnit contributes a searing essay that traces this history of clandestine military activity on the American landscape. Photo-Eye calls it a “fascinating collection” and says “Aperture has published something genuinely important here.” (Aperture)